Bad play calling: Redblacks need to give the ball more often to William Powell

The Redblacks have one of the two best running backs in the CFL and they generally win when they feed him.

They are 5-1 when William Powell has rushed for 100 yards or more this season, 3-6 when he hasn’t.

Powell has a 5.5 yards per carry average, which theoretically means he needs 18 hand-offs to reach triple digits.

So give him the damn ball.

Of course, the math doesn’t always work out because the games, as we are often reminded, are not played on paper.

But what makes no sense at all is this: Of the Redblacks 15 games, Powell has had at least 18 carries on only five occasions.

And in last weekend’s 34-16 loss in Edmonton, he touched the ball just nine times.

Powell is the league’s leading rusher, with a six-yard lead on Winnipeg’s Andrew Harris while having played one game fewer. That he had just nine touches is unacceptable.

“We do call some more run plays than it looks … end up reading some stuff out,” said head coach Rick Campbell. “But that is a guy we should get the ball to.”

So why didn’t it happen at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday?

Well, the entire offence took a big dump in the second half. Quarterback Trevor Harris took only six snaps in the third quarter, and 13 in the fourth quarter.

“We threw the ball insanely effectively in the first half, and loosened up the defence to try and run the ball,” he said. “In the second half, we didn’t get too many plays, we didn’t have too many opportunities.

“Obviously, Willie P is going to be in the fold every game, but we threw it under 30 times and rushed it under 10 for him, so we’re not getting too many offensive plays.”

Maybe if they had done a better job establishing the run early, that wouldn’t have been the case.

Powell carried the ball three times in the first quarter — on play number six (for three yards), play 13 (for 13 yards) and play 14 (no gain.)

He had four carries in Quarter 2 — play 37 (no gain), play 48 (11 yards), play 56 (two yards) and play 58 (five yards). He also had a 15-yard run, on play 77 with 23 seconds left in the half, but that was wiped out by a holding penalty.

In leading 16-14 at the break, they should have had control of the game. But the desperate Eskimos turned up the heat and the Redblacks essentially abandoned the run.

Powell had one carry in the third quarter (a two-yard run on play 94) and one carry in the fourth (for four yards on play 127).

Offensive coordinator Jaime Elizondo also said the lack of Powell had to do with a limited number of plays.

“When you run 50 plays in a game, and we call, I want to say 19 runs, and a lot of those were pulls (pass/run option) based on how the D-end was playing, so the ball doesn’t get into Willie’s hands,” said Elizondo. “But when you only get 50 plays in a game, you can’t call enough runs. You can’t call enough screens, enough throws, enough movements. We need to stay on the field.”

That no screens were thrown to Powell also was baffling. Get the guy some open field and let him do his thing.

“Whether it’s running the ball or him catching the ball out of the backfield …. look, I think sometimes things get a little over addressed,” said Elizondo. “And what I mean by that is, of course when Willie has 20-plus touches in a game, it’s because there’s multiple factors. We’re running the ball well. We’re running 75-80 plays a game. And so you can disperse things a little bit more.

“You’ve got six skilled guys on the field. They all want to touch the ball. Obviously we have to be able to produce in the run game on first down better, or overall success on first down. There’s going to be some games where Willie gets 30 touches and there’s going to be some games where unfortunately the defence takes him a little bit out of it.

“We’ve got to stay on the field,” continued Elizondo. “And for us, the biggest key is when we get into the fourth and fifth play of a series, we’re rolling, and that’s when our tempo comes into play. That’s where we start wearing down (the defence).

“We can’t have those two and outs. We can’t not have conversion on second and three to six. You’ve got to convert those. That’s when you get off the field. Obviously that’s something we always strive for — time of possession.

“It’s not for lack of trying. But it’s also a tale of two halves. And it was one of the weirdest games I’ve ever been in.”

The Redblacks now have back-to-back games against the Hamilton Ticats that should decide their fate. The Ticats have the fourth-worst run defence in the league, surrendering an average of 109.3 yards per game along the ground.

“It’s frustrating,” Powell said when asked about his lack of involvement in Edmonton, “but I also like to focus on what I could have done better. I feel like I could have got some more yards out of each run I had. I feel if I just focus on what I have to do, when the carries do come to me I’ll be able to make the most of them.

“We’ve just got to execute better and keep control of the game. I feel if we’re controlling the game and controlling the time of possession, we pretty much have the whole play book and we can run whatever we want.

“As long as we do that I feel everything else will fall into place.”

Give Powell the damn ball more and it will.

POWELL LOOKING TO SET NEW OTTAWA RUSHING STANDARD

William Powell is zeroing in on a 27-year old record.

Having already rushed for 1,275 yards this season, he needs 212 more in the Redblacks last three games to break Reggie Barnes’ all-time mark for an Ottawa CFL running back.

Barnes, who turns 51 on Friday, rambled for 1,486 for the 1991 Rough Riders.

“It would be a great personal accomplishment,” said Powell, who admits that he has “looked (Barnes) up a little bit,” since joining the Redblacks in 2015. “But it would also be a testament to the offence and the O-line. Getting that would say a lot about what we were able to do this year.”

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